Christmas, New Years and cooking

Sorry, it's been a while. I'm not empty, just couldn't think of a good serious topic to post here, and then the holidays and associated mayhem. So I'll say something a bit mundane perhaps, but still a part of me.

Cooking. Me. Men.

My mother is a strange being. On one hand, she was ahead of her time, on the other hand, tightly following conservative religious dogma. But I fiercely love her. She's almost 88 now.

But she taught me the basics of cooking, bless her, and her father, from which she got that 'ahead of her time'. Her father is a hero to me. My "grandpa". My hero.

Cooking... yeah. The importance of reading recipes and following them, which is where ALL cooks begin. Only later, with experience and imagination/inspiration, can one blossem out into a real cook. Look at a recipe, add one's own ideas and tastes, modify/reject/and add or reduce amounts and ingredients, and go....or perhaps just an inspiration and go.... Whatever.

Willingly. Not out of duty and "must" as so many women/wives/mothers must do, alas.

When it comes to cooking, men do enjoy much more freedom, without the expectations. Unfair? Yep. Men get all the credit. Women do all the work....What's new?

The last 5 years I worked very changing hours. From early to late, and then back to early. Took everything I had to do that, even though the work was enjoyable for me, for the most part. It became a survival routine, with no room for many things, cooking among them.

Now I'm retired. And this means my whole life has changed, as well as what determines it. But slowly I'm coming 'round to my own rhythm. The demands of that in retirement are one of the surprises of life.

Some guys don't survive this. Without the external demands of an employer, their routine is lost and they don't find another, at least in time. I kid you not; it is not easy to switch motives and life routine after roughly 45 years of "must". All of a sudden, there is no external "must" from an employer/emperor; yet life goes on, and so do duties and expectations from others, including wives and kids. But I digress (again...I do that a lot. Have patience, I'm a recovering Calvinist).

Where was I? Oh yeah...cooking. I think. Jeez, do I get off on tangents!

Pea soup.

Yeah. Soul food to the Dutch and those with Dutch backgrounds perhaps. And other Europeans. Misunderstood, underestimated, just as the Dutch. Poor babies! (here I go again).

But real soul food. You know. You KNOW!

I've been thinking - more and more - of getting back into cooking and baking. Real soul food, hearty, delicious, maybe spicey (even though my wife can't take spicey). Dutch, American, Mexican, Italian, German....And baking. Mostly...BREAD! The real stuff. But not that far yet. But I'm getting there....

I'm still busy with finances, who does what around the house and "will we have enough money to make it on a retirement income with 2 kids at home?" And my wife is going nuts with her work as well as a husband in the way now 24 hours a day. Yeah she works; we'd never make it otherwise. 20 hours a week, soon to be 24. And I get up after she leaves for work....heheheheheh. Pure luxury after so many years of a night owl having to get up early. Digress again...pooh!

Anywho.....I finally got into action yesterday. Made a huge pot of pea soup with everything in it that belongs there...Dutch style. And some "griesmeel" pudding (semonela). Tastier and finer than tapioca, another favorite of mine. Hours of pleasure making and eating.

Dutch pea soup. Snert, they call it here in the vernacular. G-d! what soul food!

I tried to pass the (my) recipe on to a dear friend in Spokane, Washington. Good luck, Walt. You can't duplicate it exactly; no knolselderij in Washington, and your smoked meat is far too "factory" and salty. But you can modify, as all good cooks do, and come up with a reasonable resemblance. That's the art of cooking. Oh yeah, and making do with what ingredients you have on hand...and within your budget. And THERE is the art.

Tonight we eat pea soup par excellance! I can't wait. Nor my kids. My wife, bless her, cannot stomach it and will make chicken soup from a box with our own chicken added.

And then, later, shoot off a whole bunch of fireworks, and watch others doing the same. In our neighborhood, people go nuts with fireworks for New Years eve! What an experience. A glass or two of wine to toast 2006 in with fireworks, and "oliebollen en appelflappen"* (another two Dutch treats) to bring in the New Year!
*Olliebollen are deep fried pastries and appelflappen are apple filled pastries, deep fried or baked.

I wish you a healthy and satisfying New Year from the bottom of my heart.

Peace.


Earl